Food in the Streets of Korea

Turkish Coffee

Ingredients

In addition to the coffee grounds, Turkish coffee usually includes cardamom and sugar. For someone that’s used to a plain cup of coffee, cardamom tastes, well, weird. It’s from the same family of plants as ginger. It adds an intense floral flavor to the coffee.

The thick flavor created by the sugar, coffee, and cardamom was interesting, but I didn’t like it. As you can see, I added some cream to my Turkish coffee. The cream took the edge off the cardamom. I tried to make it taste like my normal cup of coffee.

The Process

Once you add the ingredients to water, you brew the Turkish coffee very slowly in a tiny pot, which is then used to serve the coffee in tiny cups. I felt like a giant as I drank it. To make Turkish coffee properly, you must brew it slowly. If you speed it up, the coffee grounds won’t dissolve.

Even made properly, however, some grounds still collect at the bottom. It looks like sludge. You don’t drink the sludge, but it’s fun to look at.

More detailed instructions can be found online (for example, here’s a recipe)

As for me, Turkish coffee wasn’t really my cup of tea (or coffee).